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Auction: 18011 - The Williams Collection of Anglo-Saxon, Viking and Norman Coins - Part I
Lot: 56

(x) Wessex, Alfred (871-899), Penny, 1.56g, 9h, Portrait / London Monogram type (c.886-888), London, Tilewine, ælfr - ed re +, legend begins at 7 o'clock, diademed and draped bust right, no inner circle, rev. London monogram, tilevine above, moneta below, nes ligate, groups of five pellets at sides and groups of six pellets above and below (SCBI 48 (Northern Museums) 589 same dies, also same obverse die as SCBI 2 (Glasgow), 578, SCBI 11 (Reading) 43, and SCBI 39 (Berlin), 155; Dolley and Blunt 1961, pl. 9, no. 9 again same obverse die; N.646; S.1062), a very pleasing refined portrait, extremely fine, very rare

provenance:
Spink auction 82, 27 March 1991, lot 96
Spink Numismatic circular, December 1988, n. 7796, 'A superb portrait coin, in our opinion the finest known from this combination of dies.'
Sotheby, 20 September 1988, lot 608

"The obvious historical occasion for this noble coinage would have been Ælfred's military occupation of London in 886, a conscious turning-point in English history, and certainly this date is far from being inconsistent with the numismatic evidence.
Two distinct phases of issue may be detected. The earlier and more prolific coins omit the name of the moneyer, but on a few late pieces there appears the name tilewine. Presumably it was intended to increase the size of the issue - though coins of this type purporting to be by other moneyers are all Danelaw imitations - but the idea was abandoned with the introduction of a 'Non-portrait' type so that these coins can be dated with considerable precision."
Dolley and Blunt, 'The Chronology of the Coins of Ælfred the Great', in Anglo-Saxon Coins, 1961, p.83.

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Sold for
£21,000